Free The Black Joke by Farley Mowat Page B

whilst you was away, Uncle Jonathan. A crowd of Yankees or some such fellows come down to the wharf–rum-runners likely from the look of them–and Peter and I heard ’em talkin’ like they expected friends of theirs was goin’ to own Black Joke . One of ’em said somethin’ about ‘movin’ her right out from under her Newfie skipper.’”
    â€œDon’t pay no heed to half what ye hear, me b’ys,” Jonathan said, for he did not wish the boys to know how worried he was becoming, and how their story dovetailed with what he had already heard from his friend, Mathews. It was all rumor, of course, but the rumors were beginning to make a pattern–one that Jonathan did not like at all.
    Affecting an air of joviality, Jonathan put the boys to work getting supper ready. After it had been eaten and the enamel plates and mugs had been washed and carefully stowed in the racks above the old stove, he announced that he was going ashore once more.
    â€œGoin’ to look for a old friend of mine,” he explained. “Fisherman from Miquelon, name of Pierre Roulett, married a woman from the south coast. He used to come down the Bay years past, salmon fishin’. Me and Kye’s father done him a good turn once when the fishery patrol boat was looking for Frenchy poachers. He always said if ever I come to St. Peter’s I was to seek him out, and now I guess it’s time I did. Seems like we could use a friend or two.”
    The boys waited up until late that night, but Jonathan did not return until after sleepiness had driven them to their bunks. In the morning he told them that he had been unable to find his friend, Pierre Roulett. “He’s off in Miquelon where he belongs to,” he explained. “Him and his son Jacques. So it looks like we’ll just have to make out on our own.”
    Soon after breakfast a gang of French navvies appeared on the wharf with three old trucks, and allthrough the day they worked the lumber. By the afternoon the decks and holds had been cleared and Black Joke lay empty.
    At dusk another gendarme came to relieve the one on duty guarding the boat, and he brought a paper for Jonathan–in French. When Jonathan took it to the agent for a translation it turned out to be a summons to appear at the Palais de Justice at 10:00 A.M. on Monday to attend an investigation of the collision.
    Unable to find another soul in St. Pierre who seemed willing to lend him even moral support, Jonathan called on Paddy Mathews to accompany him and the two boys to the inquiry. The four of them sat ill-at-ease on a hard front bench in the dusty old judicial hall while the proceedings commenced. These were all in French, and no effort was made to translate them into English. When Jonathan got to his feet and protested that he might as well be back on his ship, for all he understood of what was going on, he was told sharply by the President of the Court–who spoke excellent English–that it was his own fault for failing to obtain the services of a bilingual lawyer to represent him.
    But several of the witnesses spoke English. The first of these was Captain Benjamin Smith, the skipper of the rum-runner.
    Grinning broadly, Smith stood before the table occupied by the President and two harbor officials, and when he was asked to tell his story, he did so with gusto.
    â€œâ€¦So there we was, headin’ down-channel niceand careful and legal-like, and mindin’ our own business, and givin’ that schooner plenty room, seein’ as how she seemed to be under sail. We was a couple hundred yards from her when my mate notices smoke comin’ from her exhaust pipe, so we knew her skipper was usin’ his engine to help him along. About then, for no reason I could figure, he shoves his helm hard over and comes sheering right out into our side of the channel, cuttin’ straight across our bow. I swung off to starboard as hard as I